Splunk AppDynamics Reviews

We use AppDynamics for end-to-end monitoring solutions. Our organization is a crowd BPO and we have deployments in 128 countries.

We recently integrated with Azure Cloud and AWS CloudWatch. They have been designing their applications such that they require a lot of resources including CPU and memory. Using AppDynamics, we have been able to monitor what is happening using fantastic metrics that it provides. We have then been able to identify the root cause of problems.

The most valuable feature is that we can see how our end-users are interacting with our application across regions. We develop applications for Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer. We do not recommend people develop applications for Firefox.

There are a lot of plugins available.

Aternity is a better solution for internet monitoring, so that is an area that could be improved.

I would like to have customizable dashboards to use when I am monitoring certain applications. For example, AppDynamics does not need Power BI-related dashboards because it already supports such functionality. However, I would like to be able to include nicer gadgets or graphs, or perhaps more annotation.

I have been working with AppDynamics for approximately 15 years.

We have 30 to 40 or more applications running in AppDynamics right now, and we are expecting another 30 to 50 to be added in the next six months. This expected increase is the reason that we are evaluating other applications.

We have licensed technical support with AppDynamics and they are really good. 

My organization uses both AppDynamics and Aternity. AppDynamics and DynaTrace have higher ratings than Aternity; however, from a cost-optimization perspective, Aternity is better. It provides all of the APM features that the other tools are providing.

AppDynamics is more expensive than competitors.

As we continue to evaluate new products, those by New Relic will be ones that we look at.

I am a big fan of AppDynamics and it is a product I recommend.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

For business purposes, the analytics side is a very unique part of the APM solution. There are lots of different APM products in this ecosystem, but other than AppDynamics, there is no business insight or very limited capacity. Other APM solutions on the business side are limited. Most of our bank customers and fintech customers use the Analytics side with very high priority.

From the C-level perspective, they mostly do not care about the operational metrics, for example, response time, CPU memory, or different kinds of technical metrics. They focus on the business side. The business impact of their application: Is it good? Is it healthy? Is their revenue increasing or not? Or stable? With the business analytics side, we provide a hundred percent of this business info. Before their end-to-end process, we provide real-time business metrics. 

For example, one of our banking customers uses business analytics to measure real-time ATM transactions, how much their customers withdraw or deposit from the ATM machine, or maybe POS machine, or in Europe, SEPA and SWIFT transactions. Customers manage their transactions from another site. We also measure real-time money transfers.

From each level, for example, ATM side, Internet banking side, mobile banking side. The business analytics side is the further version of an APM product for all APM products.

When you use the full AppDynamics product, for example, analytics and the performance measuring site, when you gather all this information correctly and fully, you can easily talk the same language between business and technical teams.

Most of the issue is not only the exact application problem or response time problem. Mostly, we face the issue of telling this problem or understanding the problem from the business side to the technical or operational team side. We cannot use the transition between this level. So AppDynamics gives us a good approach, good visibility, and a good language for both teams. 

For example, business, operational, software, and database teams use the same language to understand each other very easily. It decreases the meantime to resolution and TTR metrics, for example.

It’s a very centralized solution from the analytics perspective. So, when users expand their licenses, they can expand their visibility. For example, they measure the license count from the analytics perspective, daily transactions. They measure daily transactions, for example. One transaction analytics license gives visibility to one million transactions per day.

So if users want to expand the visibility, if users want to expand their usage of the Analytics site, they need to expand the license also, based on your transactions per day. So it’s easy.

The premise has its own AI capabilities, both on the SaaS and the on-prem side. So, if users want to use this AI feature, other than the other APM product, for example, Dynatrace, users can easily use it as a disconnected on-prem application. This means there is no need to communicate with the Internet connection or product owners, only the communication between the data center and the Internet site. So users can easily use it as a disconnected on-prem, which is the only solution in the APM ecosystem. For example, the big competitor in this area is Dynatrace. Dynatrace has its own daily static analytics features, which need a source connection. 

So, even if users use an on-prem solution, if they want to use the AI options, they need to communicate with their analytics units via an Internet connection. This is important from a technical perspective. 

Another thing is it’s totally free when users own this product with different kinds of agents. Users can also own these AI features. For example, when someone looks at the Dynatrace site, they need to pay for daily data units.  So it’s cost-based. It’s a transaction-based cost with another product, but in AppDynamics, there is no additional cost. So this is one of the advantages.

AppDynamics and the other APM products are really, really much further than other products. So, with this perspective, there are some minor enhancements that can be made, but for the major sites, there is no negative impact or any alternative application. 

For example, some cosmetic enhancements. We live in Turkey, so we have our currency, we have some number formats, or something like that. Sometimes, we can face issues getting the business metric and using or calculating it because of this format or some locality issue. So, I’m specifically talking about this kind of enhancement to enhance its localization capabilities.

I have been using it for more than 12 years now. I have been using it since the beginning. I use it both on cloud and on-premises. 

More than as an application performance management [APM] site other than AppDynamics, I have used APM products for more than twenty years.

It has been super stable. I can easily rate it a ten out of ten because there is no overhead or something like that. There’s no code application, and no code declaration is needed here, so it’s very superior.

From an analytics perspective, when users expand their visibility, there’s no need to expand the license level other than, for example, there’s no additional code application, no additional technical improvement, or something like that. Users only need to expand the license based on their daily transactions. So it’s super easy.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. It has been stable, scalable and manageable. 

In Turkey, we are working with more than 75 different companies. We are also responsible for the EMEA region, including Qatar and Austria. So, these are medium to larger organizations.

This is a global company, so there are lots of different support teams all over.

Positive

I used to work with lots of different APM products in my personal career. More than maybe six different products, for example, Dynatrace, CUI, HP Diagnostic (now Micro Focus APM solutions), and other free APM solutions, open-source APM services I used to work with.

We are an APM company. So we make PoCs with lots of different APM vendors throughout the years. For example, last year, I made maybe three different PoCs with other APM vendors. 

But now, for the last nine years, my personal technical perspective and the customer needs in Turkey really align with AppDynamics because it’s a very unified platform. It’s very easy to understand, easy to use. So because of that, I’ve been working with AppDynamics for the last nine years.

We can divide it into two sections. One of them is the agent-based installation, and the other one is the platform-based.

This is a server-side application, so it has lots of different components. Based on my experience, it is easier than other APM solutions as a platform and data warehouse. But the agent side is very different because there are lots of different applications. 

The agent side includes .NET agent, Java agent, Linux agent, Windows agents. There are different types of products on the agent side. It depends on the agent types you need. But from a general point of view, I used many different kinds of APM products, for example, NetTrace, Riverbed, Eternity, and HP Diagnostics. I have a license here too.

So, the initial setup has been simple for me.

AppDynamics delivered financial benefits to our clients. For instance, we are monitoring the money transfer services’ performance metrics, such as response time, how many calls per minute are in a specific time range, and how many other transactions are per minute in a specific time range. These are the technical metrics, the performance metrics specifically. But we are also measuring their business metrics inside the method parameters for HTTP data collectors. 

So we can get this business metric data easily without any code application. This is a very important part. We don’t need any code declaration or development on the development side. We can measure parameters like the amount of money, the success of their transactions, and other business success metrics from these method parameters without any code declaration.

Another example is a loan team in a bank that measures their loan services from their clients. They track how many applications are processed within a specific time range, the success rate, and the correlation of their performance metrics, such as slowness or error rates, with their business outcomes.

For example, yesterday, they released a new application update to address performance issues. Today, we are monitoring their application performance. After this release, their performance went down, response time increased, and success rate decreased. By measuring these performance metrics, their C-level executives and business teams can correlate these performance issues with business impact.

Normally, there’s a baseline, for example, on Wednesday from 10 AM to 11 AM, where they process ten loan applications per minute. If this release negatively affects the business, they can see that response time is increasing, error rate is increasing, and it is impacting their loan applications. So, instead of processing ten applications per minute, they might only process five or three. They can easily measure this impact on their business.

The pricing is very competitive because the prices depend on the customer and customer priority. Based on my knowledge, if I can correlate the business effect and business opportunity to their price, I would rate it a nine out of ten, with one being not cost-effective and ten being very cost-effective.

I would recommend it to other users. Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

I am the coordinator of the implementation of AppDynamics in our customers' companies. 

The most valuable feature of AppDynamics is that we can see all query times. If a particular query is taking too much time, we can alert it. 

For example, for a particular transaction, if it is related to the database we know that the slowness is coming from the database and can see the relevant details. In the application flow map, we are able to see that the flow is going to the database and how much time it is taking. We can understand if the database is responsible for the slowness or not. This also enables us to create a ticket.

AppDyanmics requires better technical people to support the solution. It is not as simple as just implementing and walking away. You need someone to maintain the solution. The day-to-day activities should be less complicated so that anyone can manage them. The administration should not be an overhead.

Our organization has been working with AppDynamics for more than six months.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Customer service and support are okay. They are willing to help and were able to solve our concerns. However, some of the issues we raised took a long time to get the solution. Some issues took several months to resolve. 

The initial setup of AppDynamics Database Monitoring is neither easy nor complex. Our database server is set up on-premise, so we needed to configure a few parameters. Once the database agent part is complete, then it is easy. We just needed to add the database one by one. 

We worked very closely with AppDyanmics through the implementation. They helped us with the configuration. By working with them, we didn't face many technical glitches.

The entire implementation, not only for the database, took three months.

The license for AppDynamics is procured by our customers.

Prior to implementing AppDynamics, we did evaluate New Relic and Instana. 

If you are talking only from the database perspective, I would recommend AppDyanmics Database. It is very helpful because it gives you more insight. 

Overall, I would rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a seven out of 10.

We worked on the kernel, and being able to monitor our application is important. We have utilized some predictive analysis, and that seems to be the biggest advantage.

The real-time feature provides me with insights into what's happening. It also tells me if there are opportunities.

I still need to thoroughly assess the stability.

I am not very impressed with support. The service could be better.

Neutral

We previously used Elasticsearch. We switched to AppDynamics for its capabilities. In terms of application monitoring, the differences were evident. The shift occurred starting December, over the last six months, and has shown improvements.

We consulted the company for the setup.

The mean time to respond when there are no issues is crucial. It is about finding the right balance. If running transactions, you should be able to respond promptly, which translates into a figure.

End-user licenses are crucial. We have users who require consistent monitoring, and they engage with it daily. This involves desktop usage and professional management. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

My company uses AppDynamics Server Monitoring for end-to-end application performance monitoring. The solution is integrated with the database managed by back-end and end-user teams.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it automatically gets connected with all the entities. The solution discovers your transactions automatically without any customized configuration class or classes or method declaration, like some of the previous solutions we used in our company. Even for databases and end users, you can connect all the entities without much customization and user intervention, which are a few things I like about AppDynamics.

The analytics portion of AppDynamics Server Monitoring could have been better. In the analytics portion, I could not find a user-friendly interface for querying, and analytics sometimes gives the wrong results, so it is not well connected in the back-end. I feel that analytics could have been better in searching and running the analytical queries.

I have been using AppDynamics Server Monitoring for five years. My company is a customer of the solution.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I don't see any problems in the solution.

Scalability is a problem for my company since we have deployed the solution on an on-premises model. Scalability would not have been a problem if the solution had been deployed on a SaaS model.

My company has around 3,000 to 4,000 users of the solution.

The solution's technical support was good. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Though I have experience with Splunk, I would not be in a position to compare AppDynamics Server Monitoring with Splunk since I currently don't use Splunk.

I was also working with a solution named CA Wily. Dynatrace is better than AppDynamics since it offers more features and granularity. Dynatrace is something where I could find that it is better than AppDynamics. With all other solutions in the market, I feel AppDynamics is good.

With synthetic monitoring, Dynatrace is good at giving the data and granularity. Dynatrace OneAgent can be used on any stack irrespective of the platform, which I think is a feature AppDynamics introduced recently. Dynatrace performs better than AppDynamics in the aforementioned areas.

The installation phase of AppDynamics Server Monitoring is pretty easy, and it depends on how we automate the process. The solution integrates with your environment. If you have the pipelines, you can integrate them into your pipeline, the steps for which are well documented by AppDynamics, and since it goes with the application, I don't see there is any downside with the installation. Operation-wise, the product is all okay.

The solution's deployment depends on a variety of factors since, in our company, we don't do manual deployments, so it doesn't take any time for us to deploy it. In our company, we just declare the arguments before the application installation. Whenever there is a new release, the AppDynamics agents will work on the deployment without any issues, so we don't feel a lot of time is taken during the installation phase. When the users are installing the solution manually, it may take quite a lot of time. Our company did not have any dependencies during the product's installation phase, so we didn't deploy it as a central team. A team to whom an application has been assigned is given the steps. My team just helps other teams integrate the playbooks into their environment, and they deploy it themselves, so we don't track the time taken for deployment.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model, so it is a bit difficult because we have to maintain the platform. It would have been easy to maintain if my company had opted for a SaaS platform.

Whether a person would view the solution as a cheap or expensive product depends on how that person negotiates with AppDynamics. In some other organizations, I have seen a different price for AppDynamics Server Monitoring. Though the product may come across as an expensive solution, I have worked with organizations that have negotiated very well on the pricing part with AppDynamics and secured the solution at a very competitive price. In short, the price of the solution is something that depends on how you negotiate with AppDynamics. AppDynamics Server Monitoring is a very expensive product, but if you negotiate well, you get value for money. If you can't negotiate with AppDynamics over the price, you won't get value for money. My company used to make early payments toward the licensing costs of the solution, but now my company has opted for a different licensing model. I am unsure if my company makes additional payments apart from the licensing costs of the solution.

My company is a bank, so we can't we could not go with the SaaS model of deployment, because of which we have some dependencies on maintenance. As a product, it requires a lot of maintenance.

Around six to seven employees do the solution's maintenance.

I would tell those planning to use the solution that when it comes to AppDynamics, the adoption phase has always been a big challenge since people from AppDynamics only install AppDynamics Server Monitoring, and then they forget it. I would tell others to work on the right adoption method and metrics, like VictoriaMetrics or Golden Signals while keeping an eye on optimizing those configurations so that you always get to see the right picture.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring has multiple use cases, including long queries, database performance, and database query details, which we have shared with the operations team.

There are multiple uses related to performance. The first is the DB connection tool, in which we have shared the details related to application performance and DB performance enhancement. In most cases, they have checked their connection, sizing and acted accordingly. For the long query details, they have performed their queries, reduced the time, and enhanced their performance.

The features related to the application performance in AppDynamics Database Monitoring are the most valuable. AppDynamics Database Monitoring has corrected its application-level code and enhanced its application performance.

The application end of AppDynamics Database Monitoring needs to improve by checking which applications consume licenses. We are not getting any details from the AppDynamics Database Monitoring portal. AppDynamics Database Monitoring's agent details must be enhanced, so each agent needs to show what kind of technology is being used. I would like to have agent details from AppDynamics Database Monitoring.

We are not getting related information and agent details from AppDynamics Database Monitoring. For example, if we have one hundred APM licenses and have onboarded multiple applications, there are no details about which technology uses which kind of agent.

Other solutions have one agent that gathers information on all kinds of server components. However, with AppDynamics Database Monitoring, we don't have any universal solution related to application instrumentation, server performance, stats, server component stats, and service stats. We would like to have better server components.

I have been using AppDynamics Database Monitoring for more than seven years.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring has high stability. I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a ten out of ten for stability.

I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a ten out of ten for scalability. More than 1,500 people are using the solution in our organization.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring provides high-quality technical support.

Positive

Before AppDynamics Database Monitoring, we used a different solution. We switched to AppDynamics Database Monitoring for multiple reasons related to end user experience.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring’s initial setup needs to be made easier. I rate the solution’s initial setup a five out of ten.

We implemented AppDynamics Database Monitoring through an in-house team of three members. AppDynamics Database Monitoring’s deployment takes around five to six hours. We get the information from the end user related to their application architecture, and according to that information, we plan and perform the implementation.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring does not require any maintenance. I highly recommend others to use AppDynamics Database Monitoring.

AppDynamics Database Monitoring's end-user experience is very good. The solution's tool navigation is very simple and clear-cut. Also, the error and exception detail AppDynamics Database Monitoring shared are crystal clear.

Overall, I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a ten out of ten.

The use case involves evaluating a mobile application's performance and user experience. We seek insights into peak usage hours, the application's status, and that of secondary services, such as databases and APIs, to gauge the mobile user experience.

We also want to identify potential bottlenecks and mobile degradation. We aim to ensure that mobile user monitoring is effective, similar to other forms of user monitoring. Although mobile devices present a different medium, they aim to detect errors, service degradations, slowdowns, and other issues. 

In the case of a mobile banking application, AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring successfully reduced the response time from eight seconds to just one second. In another example, the tool identified an issue within the mobile app, causing lost transactions in the billing system.

The product offers end-to-end visibility. This means seeing a user's actions, such as which mobile version they're using, their operating system, location, and the specific services they're accessing. This visibility allows for effective troubleshooting of their session. Additionally, end-to-end visibility provides insights into how the application performs across different layers, such as the backend infrastructure, including application servers, integrations, and databases.

The tool offers many entry points to observe issues from the backend, for example, through dashboards or tracking business transactions for degradation. You can then drill down to specific user sessions to identify slow ones and trace them back to the backend to understand the issue. That's the product's most useful technical feature. 

The user session tracking feature is embedded in the infrastructure and correlates all lines, including API and database calls. It also correlates with other metrics from the infrastructure and database.

The only improvement I see is intercepting calls in a mobile application without injecting additional code. Currently, when instrumenting or monitoring a mobile application, it's necessary to release updates, prompt users to upgrade, and inject code into the backend. It would be beneficial if there were a method to intercept these calls without requiring users to download and upgrade the application. However, I'm unsure about the feasibility of such an approach. 

Additionally, there's potential for enhancing the pricing structure, particularly as scaling up can become expensive. Given the continual growth of the mobile landscape, revisiting the pricing model could be beneficial. 

I have been working with the product for four years. 

I rate AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's stability as nine out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a nine out of ten. 

AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's support tickets are tricky. We are a major partner, and we get instant support. 

Positive

I rate the tool's deployment a nine out of ten. It is easy. The deployment time for this solution is typically quite fast. Most typical technologies, such as Java or .NET applications, can take days. However, for more complex scenarios, it might take a few weeks. Overall, the deployment process is generally swift.

The usual deployment process starts with a technical assessment. Following this, the appropriate technology is acquired. Next, access to the client's systems is obtained, enabling the deployment of the agent onto their systems.

I rate AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring's pricing as seven out of ten. Mobile monitoring is paid based on the number of instances utilizing the mobile monitoring service, which increases as the scale grows. Consequently, your mobile user count can proportionally surpass all other applications.

Our customers for AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring are enterprises. If they have a critical mobile application, I think it's necessary to consider a monitoring tool. When your business relies on it, you need visibility into what's happening—peak hours, virtual access, performance, user experience, drop-off rates, conversion rate, and other relevant metrics.

Integrating AppDynamics Mobile Real-User Monitoring with existing mobile application infrastructure is generally straightforward, although there's room for improvement to make it even easier. I would rate it at nine out of ten in terms of ease of integration. However, sometimes, clients hesitate to interfere with their CI/CD pipelines. 

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. 

The solution offers a real-time view of the things happening in a database. 

You have a live view of what happens when something goes wrong on the production or support side. You don't have to scramble and do guesswork. We can identify the query that creates the bottleneck or slows the performance of the database system. It can give you points on how to debug and fix the system. 

The solution needs to support IBM products. 

I have been using the solution for seven to eight years. 

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is stable. 

The solution's deployment is easy. 

AppDynamics Database Monitoring is expensive. I rate it a seven to eight out of ten. 

I rate AppDynamics Database Monitoring a nine out of ten.